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Friday, May 06, 2011

Portugal's caretaker government has signed up to a 78 billion euro EU/IMF bail-out, warning that its terms would push the country into recession for two whole years.

The bail-out package which requires drastic spending cuts and much higher taxes could make Portugal's economy shrink by two per cent in 2011 and 2012, the state-run BBC quoted Finance Minister Fernando Teixeira dos Santos as saying on Thursday.

Dos Santos announced that consumption taxes, but not income tax, would rise, and that Portugal's debt/GDP ratio would keep rising until 2013 before it starts falling. Other measures to be taken include changes to labor market laws and social benefits.'

Grepolis

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The illusion of freedom [in America] will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater."
Frank Zappa, musician and cultural iconoclast

"Today Americans would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful. This is especially true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead with world leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well being granted to them by their world government."